Design Apart

If you want me to name in one sentence what is wrong with the modern world, I will say that never before has the world been clamoring so desperately for answers to crucial problems- and never before has the world been so frantically committed to the belief that no answers are possible. Observe the peculiar nature of this contradiction and the peculiar emotional atmosphere of our age. There have never been periods in history when men failed to find answers because they evaded the existence of problems, pretended that nothing threatened them and denounced anyone who spoke of approaching disaster. This is not the predominant attitude of our age. Today, the voices proclaiming disaster are so fashionable a bromide that people are battered into apathy by their monotonous insistence; but the anxiety under that apathy is real. Consciously or subconsciously, intellectually or emotionally, most people today know that the world is in a terrible state and that it cannot continue on its present course much longer. _rand